An original work by Oda Eiichiro

One Piece Strong World premiered in Japan on December 12 2009, taking theaters by storm. The film drew in fans with its original story, written by Oda Eiichiro himself in honor of One Piece’s Tenth Anniversary (in previous films Oda only supplied character designs and approved story ideas, and not to mention, some of the previous films were story arcs pulled directly from the manga itself with some heavy editing). Another reason for the film’s popularity, was the special promo for the movie. The first 1.5 million moviegoers who saw One Piece Film Strong World would receive the Volume 0 of the manga as a gift.

Releasing only 1.5 million of the book turned out to be a rather bad move as fans outnumbered the books (by many times, if foreign One Piece fans were taken into account as well). Fortunately, Toei Animation has decided to add another printing of 1 million copies for the manga. Unfortunately for me, I don’t live in Japan. So catching the movie live on theaters and getting a book for myself was deemed impossible. The only option left was to secure a book from a willing Japanese seller through auctions.

Pictures of my own Once Piece Volume 0 below.

One Piece volume 0, also known as Strong World.

It is really a very thin book, probably 1/3 of a normal One Piece volume.

Stated, not for sale.

Ramblings by the author Oda Eiichiro.

The “0th volume” bonus gift depicts the world of One Piece from 20 years ago. It is said that this volume is directly related to the plot of the movie – in particular, the Pirate King Gol D. Roger versus the legendary pirate “Golden Lion” Shiki. Also included in the rather thin book were various character, monster and background sketches done up by Oda Eiichiro. There are also interviews as well as comments on making the movie. Sample pictures below.

The book kicks off with a 30~40 page story prior to the story of Strong World.

20 years before the start of the adventures of Straw Hat Luffy, with various characters from the manga making cameo appearances.

The latter pages of the book consists of various sketches of the main characters, monsters, backgrounds etc.

One Piece Strong World monster art. There are also various interviews and comments about the movie included.

I recommend this be to be added into your collection, if you’re one of the serious and crazed One Piece fans too who do not care how much it may cost you to get a book. For the less crazed community, I hope my share will bring you some insight to what the book contains.